VIOLATED

"You will put everything right with this. It is now your sole responsibility ... Am I making myself perfectly understood?"

The words echoed heavily in my skull for the hundredth time that morning as we casually made our way up Tommy Carlson's gracefully sloped driveway, dodging around the drizzly halo of a lawn sprinkler as we came up on his wide porch.

" ... Am I making myself perfectly understood?"

I put my thumb on the doorbell and pressed, only vaguely aware of the sonorous cascade of chimes sounding within the house. I closed my eyes and saw that Serbian cocksucker's face as he'd spoken to barely three hours ago; smooth, precise in his phrasing, an iron fucking fist in a silk glove, his forefinger deftly punctuating his words.

"This guy's your friend?" my companion whispered noncommittally as we waited.

I answered with a tight nod, catching him in the periphery of my vision—a truly massive guy, well over six feet, a loose fitting Italian suit that did nothing to disguise his heavily muscled bulk. He hadn't said ten words to me since I gotten in his Crown Vic, an icy menace swirling just beneath his deliberately bland countenance. My fucking watchdog, no doubts about it—he'd be reporting back on how I handled this situation, verbatim descriptions; detail by bloody detail.

I felt a deep wave of nausea come up again, bitter bile at the back of my throat as my mind churned over the conversation yet again, fifteen of the most unbearable, nerve wracking minutes imaginable with that son-of-a-bitch Serb fuck. Fifteen minutes that explicitly spelled out how my best friend had siphoned just north of three hundred grand out of the vilest mob cesspool there was. Fifteen minutes of quiet discussion that landed me here on my best friend's front porch with a guy who looked like he routinely settled problems with a Louisville slugger. "Stupid, stupid fucker," I muttered under my breath as Mike's wife, Peggy, finally opened the door.

"Jack," she smiled up in genuine surprise.

I made myself smile back—it was easy, as I'd been in her home dozens of times this year alone. I was a groomsman at her and Mike's wedding nearly twenty years before, we'd all vacationed in Belize that past winter, my wife, Janice, all our kids.

"Is Mike home?" I asked softly.

"Yeah," she answered. I watched her step back to usher us in, a flicker of unease as my new friend nodded to her and offered a very pleasant smile as he ducked through the doorway.

"Mike, Jack's here," she chimed, waving for us to follow along. I'd always loved their house, the spacious rooms; the simple elegance in Peggy's choice of furnishings.

I watched her stroll ahead of us, a very pretty woman, petite, probably forty-two years old or so, buxom for how short she was. Her pleated skirt fluttered as she walked, a plain white blouse buttoned high at the throat.

"Jackie," Mike's voice boomed as he came out of the small office he kept here.

"Mike," I replied, averting my eyes for an instant—steeling my nerve for what I had to do.

"Hello, Michael," my new best friend spoke evenly, a step or two behind me.

I saw Mike's eyes dart to the voice, the color literally blanch from his face in that instant when he knew he was nailed. His lips moved, but there was no sound at all—Peggy's eyes widened as she looked from her husband to this stranger, an unmistakable wisp of fear as she finally settled her gaze on me.

"Our friend in Brooklyn knows," I said, nodding to my own words for effect, seeing in an instant that Peggy was lost, that she knew absolutely nothing at all about her husband's little sideline, that she was as much in the dark as to the subject of money-laundering as my own sweet wife.

"Jackie..." was all he managed, again the words faltering off into pained silence.

"Three hundred thousand dollars," I spoke into the void, my voice climbing as I went on. "With all the fuckin' money we've made off this deal and you have to rip them off on top of it. What, you thought they wouldn't catch on to what you were doing?"

"Jackie, I..."

I stepped forward as my friend sidled back, panicked now, his voice cracking with dread.

"They know all about your trips to Atlantic City. They know the kind of cash you've been dropping down there."

"What are you talking about," Peggy cut in, lips trembling, a beseeching expression as she held my eyes.

"What we're talking about is the fact that your husband ... you stupid fuck, you." I almost screamed at him, cocking my fist as if I was about to lay him out, my voice crackled, so furious that tears welled in my eyes. " ... Stupid no-good fuck!"

"Jackie."

"Don't give me that Jackie shit. I'm fucking part of this now because of you, me, my ass ... My family."

"Jackie..." I heard Peggy whimper.

"Your husband stole over three hundred thousand dollars," I cut her off harshly, three fingers held aloft for emphasis.

"Oh, god..."

"Three hundred grand that he's got to pay back now, today." I glanced over at her, seeing that she'd sagged down along the wall, tears flowing over her cheeks, a sickened emptiness in her gaze.

"I'll get it back, I'll get it..."

"Your bank accounts are gutted out. You're behind on two separate notes from the business. You are currently holding eight credit cards, six of which are maxed out. You've approached two local banks about a second mortgage on this place, but haven't done shit on it yet probably because you were sweating her finding out about it ... What, you think our friends aren't thorough? Come on!"

"I'll..."

"What you'll do is ... what you're gonna do is sell this place to me for five-twenty five. That's what our friend decided. Cash deal, his money goes right off the top plus interest, the rest polishes off what's left of your mortgage. I get a house I don't really want, but happily I get to keep my brains inside my skull where I prefer them to be."

"You can't have our house," Peggy whined suddenly, as if coming out of a deep stupor. I ignored her completely.

"Not a discussion, Mike. It's either yes, or he"—I nodded gravely to my assistant, bothered by the fact that I didn't even know his name—"he puts a bullet through your head. Peggy's too ... You know what the facts are here. You knew it when you touched these animals for that first dime."

Nothing at all, Mike was just staring at me as Peggy's hushed whimpering grew weaker.

"Yes or no," the big guy exploded, across the few feet that separated him from Mike so fast that I hadn't even caught the blur, one huge hand clamped around my friend's throat, the other jamming a semi-automatic dead center to his forehead, a wicked looking piece, big, like an old army .45 with six inches of silencer threaded onto it. Peggy shrieked and tried to get up, but I had her by the shoulders fast, shoving her back onto the wall, anchoring her there as I watched what was happening— the hammer thumbed back with a dull click. " ... Yes ... or no," the voice came again, a voice that would pull that trigger.

Mike was nodding and so was Peggy, crying with sheer terror now, trembling uncontrollably as I held my grip on her shoulders.

"Say yes," the voice commanded. "Say it so I can hear it."

"Yes ... yes..."

"Good," he said, moving the gun down to Mike's lips. " ... Wanna suck it, buddy?"

"Let him alone," Peggy blubbered in my grip, freezing when his eyes swung on her. "Please," she begged.

"Please," he mocked—a smirk as he nodded at some private thought. The smirk deepened a bit and then he put a vicious knee into Mike's groin, the impact driving him off the ground, sending him crashing face down onto the floor.

Peggy was shrieking, flailing in my grasp as she watched the man drop a knee into the small of her husband's back, pinning his arms up behind him and, with the ease of much practice, cinched a black electrical tie around his wrist, tugging it till it embedded into his flesh.

"See Michael, our mutual friend figured the money would only even things out," he wheezed, stretching down to cinch another tie around his ankles, throttling it savagely as he awkwardly got back to his feet. " ... Punishment's a whole other issue with these foreigners, you know that."

Mike's face was scarlet, he was gasping for air, trying to choke down breaths, his eyes meeting mine, and then that truly sickened instant of realization. "No," he mouthed.

"Sorry, Mike," I said, then turned slowly to Peggy, leaning my full weight into her now, not flinching as her eyes widened in horror, aware of my partner stepping up alongside us now, taking off his suit jacket and draping it neatly across the back of their couch. " ... Sorry it has to be like this Peg. You know I always liked you."

"Yeah, he likes you, but now he's gotta rape you," my partner laughed coarsely, loosening his tie and pulling it up over his head like a noose.

"No, no ... please..."

I glanced back at Mike one more time and then backhanded his wife across the face, making myself throw my full weight into it—a reddened tattoo from my knuckles across her cheek, stunned mute she watched blankly as I wrapped my fingers in along the collar of her blouse and tore it open, ripping through the fabric, buttons flying as I savagely flung her across the room, towards the dining room, grappling a fistful of her hair as I shoved her the rest of the way, thrusting her down hard across the polished table.

She was writhing face down as I tore what was left of her blouse off her shoulders and off her back, tossing it to the floor, frenzied, blubbering pleas as she desperately squirmed—I roughly unhooked her brassiere and watched as Mike was dragged physically across the room and dumped into one of the straight-backed chairs, fighting back, or just thrashing as that was about all he could still manage—a thin cord from one of his pockets, my partner lashed Mike up tight to the whicker spine, a neat loop around his throat so he had to keep his head up.